September 2009 Archives

I recently read about the Amethyst Initiative, where university and college administrators argue that the current drinking age of 21 isn't preventing underage drinking. One fact I didn't realize: states have the power to set their own drinking age. However if it is under 21, the state forfeits 10% of its federal highway funds.

Public policy like this just makes me shake my head. No doubt the crafters of such legislation had the best intention. But they broke the cardinal sin of problem solving: they poorly defined the problem, and thus ended up with an ineffective solution.

While there may be a correlation between age and the risks of abusing alcohol, having some arbitrary cutoff age seems ridiculous. Why 21? Presumably we'd have less alcohol abuse if the age were 22. Even fewer at 25. Heck, we'd have none whatsoever if alcohol were outlawed for everyone!

Oh wait. We tried that. It didn't work. So why do we think that an age-specific prohibition will work today?

I think a better definition of the problem is that we have far too many alcohol-related accidents and deaths. Our goal is to minimize them. And while teens and young adults may be disproportionately responsible, they are by no means the only contributors.

So here's my public policy suggestion. Tie federal highway funds to the total number of injuries and deaths on the roads, disturbing the peace citations, and alcohol poisonings. Note that we don't want to just count "alcohol-related" incidents. That would only encourage states to game the system be very conservative when reporting their numbers.

Now that we're tracking the right metric, we can start to minimize it. There are plenty of ways to do this. Require all patrons to pass a breathalizer before they can leave any bar. Have an alcohol buying license (like a driver's license) that requires training and passing a class. The license can be revoked for bad behavior. Charge a "youth tax" on alcohol bought by 18-21 year olds (just like auto insurers charge them more).

But no matter what the solution, now that we've tied the carrot/stick to the right metric—alcohol-related incidents rather than simply age—we can encourage the right behavior.

I've been listening to the individual songs that Mae has been releasing one-per-month on their website, What is Mae? The resulting album (m)orning is certainly worth a listen, and IMHO well worth the purchase (only $5 on Lala).

Standouts for me are A Melody, the Memory and The Fisherman Song. The first and last songs on the album are throw-away filler, but everything else is solid.

As a side note, it is strange that 2 of the songs on the album are priced at $1.49 on Lala (and a whopping $2 on Amazon!). I've never seen MP3 downloads cost more than $1.30. I wonder what this is all about.

I worked with Rob Vreeland for many years. He's a good software developer, but I think he's an even better photographer. The software job pays the bills; he runs Murphy Dog Studios for the love of the work.

He's got some great photos up on his web site. These are a couple of my favorites.

My wife and I haven't yet had our pets professionally photographed. But if we ever do, I know who we'd call. Oh, and he does kids too.

If you're a fan of power pop music like I am, then you'll love the Power Pop Criminals blog. I stumbled upon it while looking for Jason Falkner's rare 2001 Japanese double CD Everyone Says It's On. (I certainly wasn't going to pay the going rate of $300 for it on Amazon Marketplace. Sheesh.) I found it, and more.

Angelo —  the blog's owner —  is both passionate and prolific. He posts MP3s for impossible-to-buy albums from the power pop genre with commentary nearly every day. The archives go back a couple of years; there are over 600 posts I'm going to need to wade through at some point here.

I agree with his philosophy on sharing this music. If he finds out it's available commercially, he will take it down. The goal is simply to share great music that would not otherwise be accessible to fans. I love it. Or maybe I should fear it. I'm afraid it's going to lead me to buy more music from newly-discovered artists.

I really like this logo. I think it's because of the Escher-esque multiple perspective points.

I think the new Facebook iPhone app might be a little bit buggy. Plus it thinks my birthday is coming up. Actually, it's in March.

I have boxes of old business cards at home. I've probably given away less than 10% of the cards that were printed for me over the years. I even designed the cards for our team at my last job. As we approach Oracle Open World, the big conference where I'll get a chance to meet a bunch of customers, I was thinking about ordering some. Then I thought better of it.

It turns out my iPhone is better than a business card. If I want to exchange an email addresses with someone, I'll open a new mail message on my phone, hand it to the person, and tell them "type in your email address". Then I whip off a quick message ("Great to meet you at Oracle Open World this year!") and immediately send it. Or same thing with a phone number. "Here, dial your phone number," I'll say. "Hand it back when it rings." If they have their cell phone on them, I'll hang up. They now have my number in their history. If it rings through to voicemail, I'll leave a message including my name and phone number. Done.

Is there any reason in this day and age of mobile computing to still have business cards?